Rys,
I heard that when anisotropic optimizations are disabled in the newer Forceware drivers, that the AF is no longer angle-dependent. Is this true?
Also, I am a bit surprised that you would feel obligated to bench the 6800 cards with all optimizations off in order to obtain a more "apples to apples" comparison to the X800 cards. Extremetech did an image quality analysis article on the X800 vs 6800, both cards using their try/brilinear filtering optimizations. They said that image quality between these modes is very comparable in game. There are some other websites who have noted that NV's anisotropic filtering image quality with optimizations off is slightly sharper/clearer than ATI's, even though both are now angle-depedent. Also, it is my understanding that the current implementation of NV's brilinear filtering has much better image quality than what was originally used on the NV3x cards. These are the reasons why many websites have started to bench the NV cards with trilinear filtering optimizations enabled vs the X800 cards with their filtering optimizations.
Keep in mind that, with the newer Forceware drivers, there are really four different routes that can be explored: tri and aniso filtering optimizations enabled; tri optimizations enabled and aniso optimizations disabled; tri optimizations disabled and aniso optimizations enabled; tri and aniso optimizations disabled. It would be be nice to see more analysis on the effects of each mode.
Apparently the X800 does texture stage optimization when doing AF, so that no matter whether you set AF via control panel or in-game, what you get with the x800 is first stage brilinear and all other stages you get something between brilinear and bilinear. The newer Forceware drivers also have texture stage optimizations at certain settings, as you can see in the optimization chart detail in the 6800NU previews.
Breaking down the NV image quality settings:
High Quality: tri and aniso optimizations disabled, no option to enable.
Quality: tri and aniso optimizations can be enabled or disabled. If tri is enabled, then you get the optimized filtering algorithm. If aniso is enabled, you get trilinear only on the base texture (similar to what happens with the R3xx cards when set via control panel). If both are disabled, then you get full trilinear and trilinear on all texture stages.
Performance/High Performance: tri and aniso optimizations can be enabled or disabled. If you enable tri, you get the highly optimized filtering algorithm. If you enable aniso, _____? The chart is not clear here. If both are disabled, then you get full trilinear and trilinear on all texture stages.
So it looks like the "Quality" setting is what should generally be used to bench the card for what I suspect is best combination of image quality and performance. Each reviewer will have to examine in detail what happens when tri and/or aniso optimizations are enabled. What is still puzzling is how exactly Performance/High Performance modes work, and what distinguishes them from each other.
That said, I think it is a good idea to show results with optimizations off and with optimizations on, when possible. Unfortunately, since the X800 filtering optimizations cannot be turned off through control panel, most reviewers will not be able to realistically compare unoptimized filtering modes between the 6800 and X800 cards.
